14Red
Well-known member
I'm not sure Michigan is an attractive landing spot for 18-22 year olds anymore. Hate to say it, but when college football became more "athletic" many schools in the midwest lost their edge. Can you get kids from the south to come to Ann Arbor, Michigan? A few, but not enough to make a difference. Michigan has to "win the trenches" and win them big in order to even compete.
They can do better than Jim Harbaugh, but they have to decide to be a legitimate player in NIL. They have the brand and the resources to compete in NIL and to successfully recruit nationally.
I don't buy the lack of viable replacements argument. More like lack of effort. They are a wealthy school in a wealthy league, and they are operating in a landscape in which the schools outside of the Big Ten and the SEC are going to be getting squeezed hard and struggling to keep up in the financial arms race in the coming years. They should be able to spend to a greater degree of relevance and consistency than what Harbaugh has brought.
I think we've seen enough of Harbaugh to know he'll do just about anything to win, and he's not been able to get the best of the best up there.Absolutely. If you spend the money in NIL, kids will come because it's one of the best college towns in the country with a fantastic campus and great athletic facilities.
I don't buy the idea that kids will go to Columbus, South Bend, and occasionally State College, but Ann Arbor which has significantly better social/cultural offerings than those places and is consistently ranked as a top-5 college town and a top 5-10 place to live in the U.S. is a bridge too far. They just have to drop the better than thou arrogance and actually behave like other big programs behave.